These days, corrugated cardboard boxes can be used in a wide range of applications. In fact, corrugated packaging can be used for almost all consumer goods and lifestyle products, including electrical appliances, computers, toys, gift items, food, and even large items like furniture, equipment, machinery, and so on.

In addition, many companies now print their logos, product names, and even product specifications on the outside of the corrugated cardboard boxes they use, and if the box's exterior surface deteriorates or becomes damaged or deformed, this carefully designed artwork can lose its appeal and important information may become obscured or lost.

Making a smooth corrugate surface sounds simple. However, if you want to make 1,000, 10,000, or even a million corrugated surfaces with a uniform smoothness, this is definitely not an easy thing to do. When paper is heated or cooled, the degree of humidity in the air can lead to unevenness in the cardboard and even cause a deterioration in quality, which can not only cause the corrugated surface to change but may also even lead to a loss in the functionality of the box in protecting the contents inside.  

Over the past forty years, the Taiwanese company Champion Machinery (tw-champion.com) has come to specialize in one thing: making the smoothness of every corrugated surface uniform. Champion Machinery was selected 2011 Taiwan Number 1 Brand. Its corrugated cardboard machine production line system has more than 40 international patents. Champion Machinery also has more than 60 international clients, including Sony, MSI, Zespri, Starbucks (Taiwan), and Double A, all of which use corrugated products made by their machineries.

These past few years, however, in addition to its commitment to quality, Champion Machinery has also continued to consider carefully how best to help its clients save money. After undertaking a series of processes to optimize its equipment, Champion Machinery has now launched three new and important transformations to its machinery and systems that will bring increased ease and savings to its customers.

Transformation One: Low Temperature, Low Pressure

Champion Machinery has been able to reduce the temperature in its corrugated box production process by 20 degrees Celsius (from 170 ?C down to 150?C). In addition, the vapor pressure now required is only 66 percent of the original (from 2.5 ton-steam/10,000m² down to 1.65 ton-steam/10,000 m²). These dramatic transformations mean that energy consumption has been significantly reduced. At the same time, carbon dioxide emissions have been reduced by 25 percent.

Transformation Two: A Simplified Process

A traditional machine takes about 12 people to operate, but Champion Machinery's new machine system requires only eight people. In addition, each production line is now capable of producing 30 meters of corrugated product per minute, which means production capacity has increased 1.3 times.

Transformation Three: Improved Quality

With traditional machines that require higher temperature and pressure, warping of the corrugated surface and broken scoring lines often occur during the wintertime. In addition, during the rainy season, traditional production lines face challenges because of the extra moisture absorbed by the cardboard, which weakens the cardboard's edges. Normally, the raw paper's density (GSM) must be increased by about 3 percent of the total original paper weight to compensate for this weakness. However, with Champion Machinery's low temperature, low pressure system, annoying problems like these can be avoided.

Furthermore, in traditional production lines, the original paper roll usually shrinks about 0.8 percent in both length and width due to temperature changes during the conversion process. With Champion Machinery's new production process, there is less paper width waste, which means a dramatic reduction in paper usage. In fact, this new machinery can mean average savings of up to 5.8 percent on raw paper usage.

In this era of "micro-profits," every gram of paper, each unit of electricity, and every second of human labor saved represent an increase in profits that may ensure the survival of a company. That's exactly why Champion Machinery emphatically, but modestly, likes to say: "Nothing is too small. From zero to a million, every little part counts!"